General purpose cleaners should be suitable for use on a wide variety of surfaces and effective against different types of soil deposits, e.g. grease, heel scuff marks, food spills, dirt buildup, wax buildup, mildew, and the like. Preferably, the cleaner should not exhibit a high degree of sudsing so as to minimize streaking when used on highly polished surfaces, for example, glass surfaces, bathroom tiles, marble and terrazzo floors, and counter tops. Cleaners in concentrate form are particularly advantageous because the degree of dilution can be regulated depending upon the nature of the surface to be cleaned and the type of soil to be removed. In addition, concentrates are cost effective from the standpoint of shipping and warehousing. Finally, concentrates, when used full strength for spot cleaning, are effective for removing extremely difficult to remove soils and stains.
Many cleaning concentrates are commercially available such as CLEAN QUICK sold by Procter & Gamble Company, FORWARD sold by S. C. Johnson & Co., Inc., and SOILAX sold by Economics Laboratories, Inc. Many cleaning compositions, whether for glass surfaces or for general purpose cleaning, have also been identified by the patent literature. For example, glass cleaning compositions are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,463,735 to Stonebraker et al; 4,213,873 to Church; 4,086,178 to Walker; and 4,081,395 to Talley.
All purpose hard surface cleaning compositions are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,453,144 to Morgan; 3,882,038 to Clayton et al; 3,709,825 to Chirash et al; 3,923,678 to Kleiner et al; 4,302,348 to Requejo; 4,152,305 to Berghausen, III; U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,956,161 and 3,966,628 to Woodward, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,175,062 to Disch et al; 3,887,497 to Ulvild; 3,239,467 to Lipinski; 3,210,287 to Kelly et al, and 3,591,510 to Zenk.
Common to each of the above captioned commercial products or patented formulations is the incorporation of a surface active agent, typically an anionic or nonionic surfactant; an organic solvent, typically a low molecular weight alcohol, a low molecular weight ether, a glycol ether, or mixture thereof; and water. In many of these formulations, a phosphate builder is incorporated as well as an alkali metal salt of an alkylaryl sulfonate used as a hydrotrope coupler. Other constituents may include pH control agents, pH adjusting agents, chelating agents, germicides, a fluorocarbon surfactant, and a corrosion inhibitor.